Procter & Gamble Canada inquiry – one per purchase & coupons exceeding item price
I have been having issues redeeming coupons lately, so I thought I would email a few manufacturers for some assistance. I basically asked them all 2 questions:
1. What should the cashier do if the coupon exceeds the amount of an item?
2. What does “one per purchase” mean?
I received a quick response from Procter & Gamble today. Here is what they said:
While we reimburse stores for the full face value of the coupons they redeem (plus the normal retailer’s handling fee), we can’t force them to accept our coupons. In the case where a product’s price is less than the amount on the coupon, the retailer will redeem the coupon for the current product price. No refund is given to the consumer for the difference. If a P&G coupon states “one per purchase”, it means that you can only use one coupon on one product. P&G also allows consumers to use up to 4 identical coupons for 4 identical products in one purchase, but sometimes stores develop their own policies regarding coupon redemption, or they aren’t familiar with our coupon redemption rules. If that’s the case, you might want to encourage the store manager to contact our coupon redemption center directly.
So although the answer to the first question kinda sucks, it also kinda rocks because they are saying that the cashiers should still accept the coupons – they just have to reduce them (but the stores WILL get the full value of the coupon back themselves).
The answer to the second question is just what I figured they would say, however, they also said you can only use 4 coupons per transaction? What the eff? Where did this number come from? Oh well, It’s not often that I get more than 4 of the same item anyway, but if I do, I will just leave that up the cashier (ugh). If they let me use more than 4, great. If not, oh well. I will just go back to the store later. 🙂
So, the next time a cashier says to me “oh, I can’t take this P&G coupon, because it’s more than the price of the item” I can be all OH YAH WELL CHECK THIS OUT – and whip out this email that I printed off. Awesome.
I’m waiting on responses for other manufacturers and when I receive them, I will post theirs as well.
Comments
Awesome thank you! and I have always wondered what “one per purchase” really meant also.
it’s great to have some clarification from the manufacturer. i’m looking forward to what the other manufacturers say!
Thanks for posting! I hate that “one per purchase” line because manufacturers and retails all interpret it differently. I wish they’d just change it to “one coupon per item”. I’ve had cashiers try to pull the whole “one per purchase” and were only going to allow me to use one coupon for the transaction, until I pointed out that everything I was buying is a “Transaction” and that each item was a “Purchase”.
I had a problem with zellers recently, cashier supervisor refused to take my coupon, which has a higher value than the product. Her excuse was that she can’t balance the till. I went to walmart instead, no prob. I emailed p n g a few days ago too, they said it’s up to store policy in not accepting the coupon.
I don’t get it. Zellers enter their coupons last, all of it says man. coupon, how would the till know that a certain item has a lower value than that particular coupon? How can the till not be balanced? Nuts!
zoe, that sucks! i hate how sometimes you have issues and sometimes you dont. very frustrating!
Interesting topic. For me, 9 out of 10 times the cashier/supervisor will know (or I can convince) “one per purchase” means “one per item” and that it would say “one per customer” if you could only use 1 coupon.
I would still argue with the cashier even if I printed it out and then when the cashier thinks he/won the fight, whip out the print out ! 🙂
oh yah, i will only bring the letter out when i am at my wit’s end. i can usually convince them to accept the coupon anyway.
thanks mrs. january for sharing as always!
you betcha! 😉
Sept 2011–i recently visited London Drugs and was trying to stack my coupons. they would not let me use my P & G coupon with any other coupon. They said the P&g coupon says you cant combine with any other coupon. So I was not allowed to stack. I could either use the P&g or my other coupons but not both. also I went to save on foods in surrey bc. The bleach was on sale for 99 cents. I had a coupon for $1 off. but she would not take it becase the coupon exceeded the item price. this really sucked. so I am running into these problems. any advice